Transportation and distribution

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." We've all been in conversations on the topics of creativity and innovation...

Long the quality and efficiency standard-setter, Toyota now has an ostrich-sized egg on its face — a problem with sticking accelerator pedals that led to global product recalls and a suspension of production and sales. There are important lessons to be learned from Toyota’s stumble: Competitive success is fluid. It depends on continuously discovering better […]

Automation can make us safer, but it creates new vulnerabilities.

The struggle to do more with less.

Venture capitalist Brad Feld says the toll of flying to meetings usually outweighs the benefits.

Maybe, but only if digital activism increases.

Avoiding this kind of disruption takes more than a skunkworks team.

Think about the history of IT.

During the summer I transitioned from Boston to Toronto, a move that forced me to take an extended side trip to my home country of Australia. And with...

As ports, highways, railways, and airports run out of room, the world faces a looming transportation crisis. The current meltdown masks the threat, but...

For decades the difficulty of motivating salespeople has been frustrating sales and marketing managers. To the most effective ones, two things are clear: one, the job is difficult; two, there is no one simple solution. Believing that “good salespeople are born, not made,” many managers recognize that recruiting is important. Others holding that “if you […]

The proposed sale of GM’s Hummer brand to a Chinese company fell through this week, and GM will now shutter the company. The ultimate symbol of overconsumption has finally fallen prey to higher energy prices and changing consumer demands. This New York Times piece offers some interesting stats, like the fact that Hummer sold only […]

A great product is more than the sum of its patents.

The travel industry is particularly bad when it comes to keeping customers informed.

It’s a different way to approach regulation.

How her long history of collaboration catapulted her to the top, and will help GM.

Leaders with a new vision.

Sergio Marchionne has lit a fire under Chrysler that is providing a spark of hope to the ailing automaker. From media reports, it seems that the Fiat team under Marchionne’s leadership is shaking up the place the way another Italian (albeit American) did a generation ago, Lee Iacocca. As a hands-on manager, Marchionne expects his […]

Different metro areas will need different solutions.

We spend a disproportionate share of our money on housing, health care, and education.